Testing my abilities to write original headlines time and again, week after week of sending out same-y press releases that are structured more or less the same way with the same amount of content, Falcom has once again opted to showcase another two characters that will be showing up in The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II when it launches in Japan late next month.

Find all the new details below. And as always, potential spoiler warnings are in effect.

Prince Olivert Reise Arnor (voiced by Takehito Koyasu)

“I’m sorry to impose, but we’ll be taking that off your hands if you don’t mind!”

The Erebonia Empire’s Prince Olivert is the oldest child of Emperor Jugend the III. Known as a man of refined tastes, the 27 year-old was born an illegitimate child, rendering his claim to the thrown null and void. Possibly because of those circumstances, he’s recently taken to making the rounds among high society and the media, making his name known more and more widely known. As the chairman of Thors Military Academy, he’s also responsible for the formation of Rean and company’s Class VII as its planner. Concerned about the rising tensions between the aristocrats and the reformists, he headed up construction of the Courageous, the latest and fastest warship around, and also tried working with those with no stake in the conflict or otherwise had good senses about them in an effort to stave off civil war as “The Third Power.” But right as the war breaks out, he and the Courageous both mysteriously disappear without a trace.

Georges Nome (voiced by Takeshi Mori)

“I still can’t believe you actually managed to survive that fight. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

Georges is a 19 year-old who’s been at Thors for two years. Known for sporting a tracksuit, he’s a sturdily built person that’s a mentor to the younger students. Although still only a student himself, he’s extremely talented with technology, doing things such as building Orbal motorbikes and heading up the school’s technological facilities all by himself, becoming someone that all sorts of people came to turn to for help. During his first year, along with Crow, Towa, and Angelica, he helped run various events around the school. As a result of the experience, he and the others have their suspicions about what’s up with Crow’s defection. When the academy becomes a target for attack at the outset of the civil war, he and Towa stay behind, but what happened to him after that remains unknown.

The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II is due out for PlayStation 3 and PS Vita on September 25 in Japan. Check out the usual slew of new art and screenshots at the gallery.

Just wish these games were localized and they had a bigger budget and used a better game engine..

PrinceHeir

I actually wished they stuck with the 2D sprites or the ones from the Crossbell Arc games and make it VIta exclusive.

It seems, they haven’t fully grasp of the 3D engine, which is a shame since their 2D ones are beautiful!

http://twitter.com/SrTirano MrTyrant

I think it was getting old already. It’s true that the 3D is not that good but I think with a couple of titles it may look even great to the point of being closer to the current top jrpgs. I miss the 2D portrait when talking though….

Articuno76

I can abide by the general visual quality (in stills) but there are still some presentation issues I can’t get over, like how the characters heads are the wrong shape; at certain angles they don’t look “anitomically” correct (as in correct to anime style).

The quality of the animation (of Sen I at least) also leaves a lot to be desired, especially as it looks as stiff as it does even though the (PS3 version) game is running in 60FPS – a technical feat that normally smooths over rough animations.

You know your animation is bad when even boosting the framerate up to 60FPS can’t save it.

But I think the real kicker is that even with all the presentation compromises the game still has a host of technical issues. That speaks to me of a rushed product. It was one of the reasons I was glad they delayed Sen II – they needed to.

http://twitter.com/SrTirano MrTyrant

They say something about improving the overall animation because it was really stiff and weird. About the character model i dont see much difference sadly.

I just hope sen II doesn’t have those bugs and loading time that were present in the original sen and made you wait for patches.

Articuno76

TBH I’m feeling quite confident that the load times will at least be on par with the 1.02 patched version (if not better). The engine/assets all seem to be reused as is so I can’t see them regressing.

To be honest though the level of assets in Sen are easily at the level where load times could be pretty much nothing to non-existent, so it’s upsetting the game isn’t optimised much better.

I’m hoping that the Vita version of Sen II has a more stable framerate than Sen I, faster load times (1.02 is perfectly playable, but I’d hesitate to call them fast) and a handheld friendly UI.

I might just get my wish with the load times though as digging around on the internet I found that the Chinese versions of Sen no Kiseki I were actually improved to have even shorter load times than the Japanese 1.02: